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Gorgon CubeSat

Gorgon is a CubeSat mission concept developed at ASU's Sun Devil Satellite Laboratory to catalogue ocean macroplastics from orbit. Detection rides on shortwave-infrared hyperspectral imaging — polymers show distinct absorption peaks at 1215 nm and 1410 nm — from a 500 km sun-synchronous orbit at 50 m ground sample distance over a 50 km swath. I directed the interdisciplinary team and the mission architecture, growing the concept from an initial 3U design into a 12U platform as the payload demanded it.

Bus3U → 12U
ImagerSWIR 1000–1700 nm
Orbit500 km SSO
GSD50 m
Payload & Bus.02

The bus pairs the SWIR hyperspectral imager with a Blue Canyon XACT-50 ADCS for pointing and DHV body-mounted solar panels delivering ~25 W, with the power budget and pointing requirements derived from the camera's duty cycle. Conceptual structure and packaging were modeled in SolidWorks and Onshape, and thermal-dissipation checks kept the electronics stack inside operating limits after the 3U→12U scale-up.

Comms Architecture.03

The defining trade of the mission: an integrated Iridium satellite terminal for space-to-space data relay, removing the dedicated ground-station requirement entirely. Validating it meant simulating orbital passes against the Iridium constellation to confirm contact coverage from 500 km SSO — infrastructure cost traded against link availability, in favor of a mission a student lab could actually operate.

Trades & Integration.04

Trade studies selected the Unibap iX5-100 onboard computer for hyperspectral processing and GOMspace NanoPower BPX batteries for eclipse reliability, with subsystems aligned over MIL-STD-1553. Payload mass and power were balanced for a one-year mission life in a debris-conscious orbit. Alongside the engineering, I served as Vice President of the lab — running workshop operations, procurement, and the sponsorship package that funded active projects.

Outcome.05

Gorgon remains a proposal — deliberately so. It was built to be a complete, defensible mission concept rather than a partial prototype, and it gave a student team end-to-end systems experience: requirements, trades, budgets, and a design review that holds together. The Iridium relay architecture is the piece most worth carrying forward; NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative is the natural next step for a concept like it.

References.06